


Waterlooed

by archea2



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: ACD Canon References, Canon Rewrite, Costume Kink, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M, Post-Hiatus, Romance, rantmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>One hundred forty-two.</i> And no tea for two on tonight’s programme. No wining and dining either. Leave it to Sherlock to celebrate their first anniversary by feeding him half a chicken sandwich and making him sleep on the couch. </p><p>Basically, a S/L rewrite of "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waterlooed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocketbookangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketbookangel/gifts).



_And now I think that a few hours’ sleep would do us all good, for I do not propose to leave before eleven o’clock and it is unlikely that we shall be back before morning. You’ll dine with us, Lestrade, and then you are welcome to the sofa until it is time for to start_. ("The Adventure of the Six Napoleons")

 

 _One hundred and thirty-nine_. Recalling his smoking days, Lestrade took a long, hard drag of oxygen, gulped, froze, paused, and fell into a cough. Relaxation, his arse. His - currently - flat-buttocked arse. 

 _One hundred and forty_. Speaking of which, his arse was now on pins and needles, not half and no mistake. So-fa, not so good. _Ha_. Could be that Sherlock voodooed it every morning, 'course, to speed the duller clients on their way out. You never could tell, with Sherlock.

 _One hundred and forty-one_. If they’d been push-ups, he’d be stoned on the endorphins. Instead of which, he was wide awake and dry-humping a sofa. Hooray.

 _One hundred and forty-two_. And no tea for two on tonight’s programme. No wining and dining either. Leave it to Sherlock to celebrate their first anniversary by feeding him half a chicken sandwich and making him sleep on the couch. Classy. And still bent on going, even after the wise men from Clubs and Vices had tipped him the wink about the man Venucci’s inglorious past. Peter Ricoletti’s mole in England, and didn’t that bring back happy memories. All right, now. Deep brea – damnit. He’d lost count.

 _One hundred and forty-something_. Too late for forty winks. And only two ways of looking at it. One, he was wrong, and Sherlock would bring off his little stunt with full honours. Two – nah. Wrong turn. Because that way lay madness and more grief that Lestrade could possibly, humanly take. Not tonight of all nights.

 _One hundred – one_ – oh, sod it all.

 

\------------------------------------------------------

 

When Lestrade opened his eyes, 221B was already grounded in its own shadows. Hyperactive little buggers they were, cramming the place as if they were refracted and reflected from every mad surface - skulls, book jumble, the heart-shaped rubik’s cube on the coffee table, with the gift paper still messing around - even the gothic-punk spinach on Mrs Hudson's wallpaper. The whole flat was a tabloid’s wet dream, or, as one paparazzo had crooned wittily after Sherlock’s first and last home interview, _a gloom with a view_.

But to Lestrade, who had seen this very room orphaned and stripped bare to its walls (and died a little under the sight), it was a joy. A delight. An exorcism for the shadow puppet theatre that went on darkly inside his head. And tonight, until Sherlock flew the coop once more, a relief.

 

He tried to keep his eyes focused on it while struggling up from the sofa.

 

"The whole point of Zazen," a voice murmured from a point still well above his head, "is to loosen the human mind until it no longer perceives itself as thinking. To the more advanced, this comes as a free pass into a superior degree of concentration. I was hoping it would send you to sleep, Greg. But for that to happen you have to count your breaths, not _grunt_ them."

 

"Zazen, schmazen," Lestrade grunted back between two kicks. Somewhere during the past one hundred forty breaths, somebody had wrapped him in a blanket. Warmly, caringly, and rather enchilada-wise. "What’s the time? You all dolled up and set to go, then? Look, Sherlock. About that. I know you said no back-up, but I’m still uneasy about that Napoleon shtick. What if... Sherlock, what are you doing?"

 

Instead of an answer, he heard a soft swosh of air as Sherlock launched one leg up and over the back of the sofa. The ancient leather sank with an almost obscene sigh under a thigh so creamy white in the half-dark that for one wild, hard pulse, Lestrade wondered if Sherlock was actually naked above the Hessian boot giving off the slightly feral scent that came with dark leather. His eyes sliding shut, he gave in and turned to press his open mouth against Sherlock’s upper thigh, relishing the soft roll of muscles that answered his touch.

This was...so much more than a kink. This – the never-too-solid flesh, palpable under the white breeches now grazed and moistened by Lestrade’s mouth – this was still what it took to bury a two-year-shaped hole in Lestrade's heart.  

"You’re still worrying, then."

He could feel the undertow of concern in Sherlock’s voice as his shoulder was caught in a grip, used as a lever for Sherlock to hoist himself up and toboggan smoothly down next to him. "And the lack of sleep is telling, even on you."

Lestrade opened his mouth, kettle calling the pot to heel, but Sherlock was quicker.

"Greg, it’s not what you’re thinking." 

"When is it ever," Lestrade muttered. He broke the touch, reluctantly. But Sherlock never indulged during a case, and it wasn’t fair game to push him. Even though Lestrade was, in fact, worried. 

Funny, if you thought that the case had not even been a case to begin with. Merely Mrs Hudson nagging at them to investigate a _cold_ , of all the outlandish requests. Mrs H. herself was in the pink – or purple – of health, thank god. No, the case concerned her nephew by marriage. Mrs Hudson, notwithstanding Mr Hudson’s dramatic exit out of this world, had maintained excellent relationships with her in-laws, all of whom had agreed with her that Norman had been "rather naughty". She had retained a godson in the person of Norman’s nephew, young Morgan, "Morse" to his pals, who Mrs Hudson was proud to say was walking the straight path of naked virtue. When Lestrade had asked for more details, she’d answered brightly, "Male stripping, dear." Adding that there was nothing like daily exercise to keep your spirits up, though she herself was more the bicycling type.

"And it’s Devine’s, dear. No honky-tonky-monkey business for my boy. Oh, but I’m so proud of him. He’s being auditioned for a solo next week, did I tell you?"

****

Devine’s was indeed an institution. One of the oldest and swankest night scenes in London, the Yacht Club to the world of cruising, it had mutated through various rebirths from its early days, when its main attraction lay in showing young ladies naked from the neck down. They all wore masks, dark, enticingly Pagan tabernacles of leather, fur and hard minerals that left them faceless, kindling a white-hot mix of lust and _frissons_  in the audience. (The establishment’s name came from a rumour, carefully nursed by the management, that now and then a society beauty would climb the stage naked, either for fun or a cheque worth a queen’s ransom, and taunt the voyeurs to find her in the occult parade.) When black masses and Veuve Cliquot became yesterday’s kicks, Devine’s invested in smoke and mirrors, then mixed strip-tease, then round-the-clock strip-tease, patriotic strip-tease, twist-and-shout strip-tease - always toeing the line between scandalous and squalid.

 

And when 2015 had loomed ahead, with the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, nobody had been surprised to hear Devine’s promote an exclusive number in which Napoleon and Wellington would "lay down the trappings of power" in pomp, circumstances and a rerun of Abba’s hit song. (The new rumour, that Abba had been offered a Norse god’s ransom to re-form on that occasion, had been carefully not-denied by the management.) And to Mrs Hudson’s pride and joy, young Morse had been chosen for the part of Napoleon. This was a monster boost to Morse’s glittery career, or would have been if, just after the dress rehearsal (so to speak), he hadn’t been felled by an extremely nasty bug which left him as weak as a kitten, and miserably off work ten days before the big night.

 

Mrs Hudson, upon learning of the news, immediately smelled a rat. Not only was Morse as strong as a horse, never a day’s sickness since childhood, but his usual stand-in had been told not to bother as Devine’s had already found a replacement. This led Mrs Hudson to spin no less than four conspiracy theories (two of them co-signed by Mrs Turner) and demand that her boys investigate the sick Napoleon.

 

If it had been anyone else, Sherlock would have put the case down to a 2 and a draught in the club's changing-room. But this was Mrs Hudson, whom Sherlock  loved after his own Sherlockian way. (Lestrade suspected this was also Sherlock making it clear to Mrs Hudson who was chief prodigy in the house. His mopey sulks every time young Morse showed up at  221A had been reaching an epic scale.) And in the end, Lestrade had let himself be dragged in and agreed to enquire about Devine’s.

****

Which was when the family cold case, as John already threatened to dub it on his blog, had become much more disquieting.

****

"You’re thinking of the past." Sherlock was facing him on the sofa, eyes intent; and Sherlock’s knee was nuzzling his, easing them apart so he could slip his booted calf between Lestrade's thighs. Now they were being closed gently over the chaste, chafing contact.  "Greg. Don’t."

 

"Don’t what?" Lestrade had picked up the heart-shaped rubik’s cube and was tossing it in one hand. Sherlock had made progress on it, though the aorta was still upside down. "Blind myself to facts on command? You know I can't do that. If Venucci was Ricoletti’s man, and if Ricoletti was Moriarty’s branch manager…"

 

"Greg. Every big fish in the sea of crime has a six-degree relationship with Moriarty. And yours is a red herring."

 

"It’s – not the only connection." Lestrade spoke hoarsely, trying to evade the taut silver gaze. He lowered his eyes to the red coat laden with golden braids. It was fitted tightly round Sherlock’s waist, but left open and loose on a shirt and something that reminded Lestrade of his daughter’s Millenium Wedding Barbie but was apparently called a lace jabot. Sherlock’s neck and face rose from the lace, made even sexier by the pony-tail which John, their uniform expert, had branded as historically wrong, but Boyo, their strip expert, had said would keep Sherlock’s curls out of the velcro. (Boyo was Devine’s bespoke Wellington, or had been before he was persuaded into a gentlemen’s agreement by a cheque worth a banker's ransom.)

****

_Stay here, stay the night, stay the night with me_ , Lestrade almost said, caught in a scalding rush of lust, jealousy, fear, and die-hard _mine, mine_. Instead he leant forward, shifting his weight onto his legs until their grip on Sherlock increased, pinning him under Lestrade’s body gravity. Looking at him, Lestrade said "You read the press as I do. You know what I mean."

****

He hadn’t expected Sherlock to stay still. Sherlock was younger, a virtuoso in close combat; all it would take for him to free himself was a mere sleight of muscles – not even that, because Lestrade would let go at Sherlock’s first sign of discomfort. But Sherlock only looked back, looked at him, and suddenly, with a furtive twitch of atmosphere – Sherlock giggled.

 

"Oh," he said, and there was, unbelievably, wonder in his voice as he touched a thin line on Lestrade’s forehead. The touch held a softness that made a strange contrast with Lestrade’s ruthless leg-lock . "So _that_ ’s where it comes from. "

 

And now Sherlock was stroking his eye corners, his temples, all the vulnerable zones of Lestrade's face, listing past cases and arrests in a murmurous flow. "But this is a new one and I couldn’t place it. So annoying. And so obvious. _The Napoleon of crime_ , Ms Riley’s misguided attempt to find redemption in the hyperbole. Oh, Greg, Greg. You, of all people, reading _The Sun_?"

 

The silly, adorable giggle bubbled up again. It made Lestrade smile despite himself. Made him loosen and bloom with a hidden joy, because this, the kiss of Sherlock’s fingers on his face, was theirs and theirs only. Their way of keeping past and present in touch, but without the pain, without the haunting. Even when…

****

"It’s not just _The Sun_ , sunshine. It’s gone bloody viral. She’s good at her job, that woman: everybody and their mum’s using the phrase now. Popped up at a quiz night yesterday, too. And now you’re off to drop trou with a mystery Napoleon, whose sponsor happens to be, what? Moriarty’s minion-in-law? Excuse me if I find the coincidence a bit daunting."

 

Sherlock didn’t answer; he was still mapping Lestrade's face out, stroking the soft place behind his ears, under his cropped grey hair. When he did, Greg heard him say something foreign. _Wabisabi,_ by the sound of it. He wondered if Sherlock had switched to French, as he did now and then, the big tease. "Sherlock!"

 

This time Sherlock said "Idiot", but without his usual chutzpah. He was shaking his head. "He’s dead, Greg. And he’s not coming back." Sherlock hesitated, though this was not because he was searching for his words. Finding was one thing with Sherlock, quick and sure; speaking entirely another. "You won't lose me again."

 

He knew he would have to believe this, sooner or later. One year later, he still found it hard.

 

Sherlock sighed. "All right, I’m going to tell you how the evening will go. It was meant to be a surprise, but since you’re forcing my hand – and my leg, which I’m going to need presently, thank you – you leave me no choice. It’s a drugs bust."

 

" _What_?"

 

"Well, we can’t always have them at home," Sherlock said in the aggrieved tones of a 1950s’  housewife complaining that they never ever dined out. "I thought you’d like it! It’s a big catch, Greg. Wonderfully lethal. A brand new rave drug called Borgiac - psilocybin, nitrite and cocaine all rolled into a shiny little black pill - and they’re launching it at Devine’s tonight. Someone roofied young Hudson with a prototype to check the effect and alter it accordingly. A rehearsal, of sorts. All we need to find is who’s spreading the goodies, and that’s something I could hardly check from the back rows."

 

Lestrade was trying very hard not to slam his head in his palms. He settled for mumbling something about being more than happy with a box of chocolates.

 

"Our first anniversary," Sherlock said, outraged. "John tells me it has to be a Meaningful Gift. He’s getting Mary a _ficus domesticus_. And the drugs bust is only half of it, in any case."

****

"Oh?" Lestrade was playing with the lace jabot. He flicked it aside with a finger and bent his head to the pale warm neck. _I’m so getting you a ficus next year, Sherlock Holmes_.

****

Sherlock’s odd giggle rippled under the kiss. With a quick sleight of muscles, he freed his legs, only to swing them both over Lestrade’s lap. The creamy breeches stretched accordingly, and Lestrade had to break the kiss to admire the effect.

 

"I’m a genius," Sherlock said modestly, if a little breathlessly. "I’ll have the whole gang rounded up and numbered for you in ten minutes, tops." He gave Lestrade a celebration meaningful look and repeated. " _Tops_. Then we'll go home. And you...will still have plenty of opportunity to see. Observe." Sherlock's voice dropped to a velvety rumble. "I think you'll like what you see."

****

Just the visual made Lestrade almost giddy. Him on the sofa, once again, with Sherlock facing him full front. Sherlock divesting himself of his reds and golds, slowly, sensually, exposing himself for Greg's eyes only. Layer by layer, top to bottom. William Sherlock Scott Holmes, the world's most intelligent genius, stripping for him.

But it was Lestrade's heart that filled at the sight, tumescent with love; that swelled and rose, and gushed in exultant release even as he gathered Sherlock into his arms.

****

"Greg, we should be getting ready now. There’s really no time for – Lestrade, what the hell are you doing?"

 

" ’s all right." Lestrade, his cheek pressed tightly to a gold braid, was remembering. The Iron Duke, John had said. A strategist. And a fighter. An amateur musician, who had once burnt his violin in a fit of anger at the general idiocy surrounding him. Highly unpopular in his debuts, a man famous for his cold looks and scathing words, but a great man, a magnetic man, beloved of the crowds in the end. More to the point, a man whose love and loyalty, once given, had proved as inflexible as his sobriquet.

 

He raised his head and winked, confident in the knowledge that Sherlock would understand him as he understood Sherlock. "Facing my Waterloo."

 


End file.
